


He Who Made Her

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Glorious Milk Drinker [5]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Ancestors, Angst, Backstory, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood, Drunkenness, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Ghosts, Guilt, Mental Anguish, Original Character Death(s), Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Sovngarde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5746084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His seed made her be. His blows made her break. Her tears made him change.</p><p>Two contrasting drabbles sketching a relationship between a female Nord Dragonborn, known as the Milk Drinker, and her father. Will make more sense if you peruse other stories in the Glorious Milk Drinker fic series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nestled among the snowy wooded slopes a little way to the north of Bruma, with each of its windows blazing white and gold, the stately mansion looks like an enormous jewel laid on display on a folded ermine coverlet, beneath a canopy of dark-blue velvet...  
  
The child's lips twitch slightly as she makes this comparison. Good thing Father isn't here; good thing he cannot read her thoughts. He would surely have yelled at her for filling her head with sappy poetic nonsense, fit only for elves and Imperial-loving milk-drinkers. Priding himself on being a true Nord, he has little love for any art forms save for sagas telling of the deeds of great heroes that turned mountains and strangled dragons with bare hands when the world was young.  
  
It was Mother's idea to commission the painting of Father's ancestor. From the conversations she has heard round the household - and people talk so freely around her, as though she was part of the furniture - the child knows that this was precisely the reason why they got married. Heri-something. Heritage.   
  
Mother does her best to copy the finest Imperial customs; she will fry you to a crisp with her eyes if you call her anything but a lady. And Father is so unlike her - he is far, very far from being... what do you call a he-lady? Sitting hunched in a shadowy corner of her room, playing the easiest of her games - pretending that she is an Illusion mage and has just turned herself invisible - the child once heard Mother say to some other proper lady that came to visit,   
  
'Daaaarling, of course Islav is a brute! Why, bears will start eating their honey with one pinkie in the air before he as much as looks up the word "manners" in the dictionary! But, think about it: he is descended from Bran Fire-Eye himself! That turn of the century hero? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was a brute too, but roots like that give you weight in society, you know...'  
  
  
And that was how the child learned that the Imperial priests - the ones teaching her and other young Nords about the Eight Divines - were wrong. Not about Talos; whenever the grown-ups started that argument, she would slink away, clutching her head, which would instantly start aching with confusion. About Mara. And the blessings that She bestows. People don't get married because they love each other. The priests were mistaken about that. Or maybe, they lied. Grown-ups often lie, after all. Even though they keep saying that lying is wrong. Perhaps it is because they are so strong, and wise, and confident, and it makes them better than miserable little younglings like herself, and being better, they live by different rules...  
  
Anyway. Mother has always loved reminding everyone about Father's family tree; and finally, there came a day when she hired an elven painter to - how did she put it? If only the child's mind wasn't too frail and pathetic to contain those awe-inspiring grown-up words! - immortalize the mighty Bran Fire-Eye. At first, Father was obviously disgusted by the thought of having his proud ancestor portrayed on canvas, like 'those Imperial dogs', and by an elf, no less. He objected - in that thundery way of his that made the heart of his eavesdropping daughter sink into icy waves of terror, which rose, lapping softly, inside her chest. But eventually, he caved, after Mother had talked to him for hours and hours about honouring his ancestor the way he deserved, her voice dripping with so much honey that the child choked, her throat parched and sticky.   
  
And then, Llewyn arrived on their doorstep, tall and shallow-chested, with skin the colour of cold ash in a dying hearth, and eyes like almond-shaped garnets, glowing warmly from beneath a fringe of long, sleek mahogany hair. And brought his paints and brushes, and wakened the drowsy, dusty air in the attic, where he set up his studio, with the sharp, heady whiff of something that was called turpentine. And turned the colours in the child's world from dreary grey to every possible shade of his palette.  
  
She is seeing him off now, trudging through the snow at his side and looking up into his face. The portrait is complete, and while back in the mansion, the walls are quaking with the noises of the lavish feast in celebration of Bran Fire-Eye being 'immortalized', the painter has slipped away, and no one but his employers' little girl even noticed that he was gone.  
  
The two of them pause on the very top of a jutting, snow-capped cliff, and look down, at the gem-like mansion, and the painter takes a deep breath and flexes his shoulders. His shabby, oversized black travelling cloak is flapping in the wind - and this, together with his long hooked nose, makes him look rather like a bird about to take wing  
  
'It is time for us to part ways,' he says quietly, ruffling the child's already unkempt fair hair with his long fingers, callused in places where the brush usually rests.   
  
The child sniffles, remembering the long afternoons she would spend in the attic, watching the elf work, quiet as a mouse, her eyes gleaming so brightly with awe that her pupils were barely visible. And the conversations they used to have when he took a break.   
  
She would tell him the silliest, most random things that everyone else would have laughed at. About how she loves gazing at the clouds and discovering other colours in them apart from white - blue, and pink, and even green and yellow. And about the spot on the ceiling over her bed that looks like a woman leading a cow behind her on a string; the woman has two pointy ears and a tail, which makes her a Khajiit, and the cow's name is Daisy, and she gives enough milk to feed her owner's many, many hungry kittens. About the imaginary heroes whose adventures she describes over and over to herself while poring over the endless, boring embroidery Mother makes her work on, because embroidery is such a lady-like thing. And he would smile, and nod, and ask questions that showed that he was really, truly, sincerely interested in her strange little fancies, and praise her eeema... eeemageenashon.   
  
And then, he would share his own thoughts and dreams, her hanging on to his every word. He was planning to spend Mother's commission fee on supplies and passage to the far-off Morrowind, the land of his ancestors, a strange, alien place, inhabited by creatures and plants with odd looks and names. There, he wanted to work as an architect and help Great House Redoran return the desolate province to its former glory... And then, some day, when he was no longer needed, he hoped to begin the search for his lost family heirloom, a magical brush that allowed the painter to be transported inside the canvas.   
  
She would drink his tales in with barely drawing a breath, and gaze dreamily at the charcoal sketches he made for her, of mushroom trees and giant insects and jagged half-ruined towers, and hug them close to her, and make clumsy, disproportionate scribbles of her own, which he accepted with a small flustered smile. For the child's father, the painter was a filthy grey-skin tainting a proper Nord household with his presence; for her mother, he was a tool, a pair of hands that could conjure up the painting she needed - but for her, he was a friend. And she was a friend for him. Not a worthless milk drinker. Not a bothersome addition to an empty room. Not a blundering imbecile... And now, he is leaving. He is going away, and taking the happy colours with him.  
  
'I will miss you,' she whispers, hugging the Dunmer's legs.  
  
'I will miss you, too, little gold kanet,' he replies softly, using the nickname he has given her - because, apparently, the colour of her hair reminds him of a flower growing in his homeland.  
  
Suddenly, the film sadness in his eyes is dissolved by a bright, mischievous spark.  
  
 'Before I go... I'd like to share a secret'.  
  
The child draws away from him, her face eager, her eyebrows raised in tiny arches.   
  
'What secret?' she asks with a broad smile. That is precisely the magical word that was needed to make her forget, for a moment, about the pain of parting with her friend.  
  
'Think about my painting,' he says, in a sly, conspiratory tone. 'Has anything about it struck you as odd?'  
  
The child screws up her eyes and clenches her fists, commanding Bran Fire-Eye's image to appear within her mind. Llewyn has painted him standing with one foot on a rock, peering from beneath his hand at the swirling clouds on the horizon. The hero of old is wearing a set of finely woven, gleaming chainmail, and has the pelt of a snowy sabre cat thrown over his broad shoulders and a hunting horn and a small axe strapped to his ornate belt. His long hair is blowing in the wind, tinted bright gold by the last rays of the setting sun, and, true to his nickname, his eyes burn intensely beneath knitted bushy eyebrows. His eyes... The child lets out a small, excited squeak. She has found the odd thing that Llewyn was talking about. Bran's eyes. They are not pale-blue, like Father's, or icily, transparently grey, like Mother's; at first, she thought they were dark-brown... But they are not. They are definitely not. They are red.  
  
The painter folds his arms on his chest with a smirk. He knows that she knows.  
  
'Your parents were too busy admiring the details on his armour to notice this,' he says. 'But you have an eye for detail - no pun intended'.  
  
'Ooh, I get it,' the child giggles.  
  
'There is a reason why I painted him like this,' Llewyn goes on. 'Before starting my work, I researched Bran Fire-Eye a little - which was rather hard, as so much was destroyed and lost in early Fourth Era. I knew he came to Skyrim from the island of Vvardenfell, in my homeland. I thought he'd been born in Dagon Fel, since it used to be an all-Nord community. But all the scant accounts I found indicate that he was, in fact, from Ald'Ruhn, the former council seat of House Redoran on the island'.  
  
The child blinks a few times, confused. Fascinated as she is by Llewyn's stories, she does not quite get the point of this secret. The painter notices this, and chuckles.  
  
'Don't let me bore you with details of my research. To cut a long story short, Bran Fire-Eye was not as pure-blooded a Nord as he liked people to think. He had a Nord mother, yes - but his father was a Dunmer'.  
  
The child claps her hands against her mouth in disbelief. Llewyn nods in solemn silence and, after a short pause, concludes, his voice gradually beginning to throb with emotion,  
  
'Yes. The thought of the irony has often helped me live through your most esteemed father's... outbursts. He, who is so proud of his heroic ancestor, he, who shows so much disdain towards my kind, he actually has a droplet of Dunmeri blood in his veins. And you, too, little gold kanet - you, too, are part-Dunmer. This is the secret I wanted to share with you. I have never had a child of my own, and I do not know if I ever will - but you... You are the closest thing to a daughter I could ever dream of having. I want you to know that... Be well, little gold kanet. Under sun and sky'.  
  
He bends down and plants a swift kiss on her forehead, and a tiny, crystal clear droplet rolls down his cheek and scorches her skin.  
  
'Under sun and sky,' she echoes shakily, and remains standing in the biting, icy wind, watching Llewyn walk away into the dusk. Only when she cannot see him any longer, she turns back and waddles home, her head swimming slightly. The painter's parting words have dazed her, stunned her, left a whole pack of feelings clawing at her from within like wild beasts.  
  
She is sorry to see Llewyn go, and happy to learn that her cared for her almost like his own daughter, and ashamed of herself because this happiness makes it seem that she does not love her own parents well enough, and it is her duty to love them for bringing her into this world and putting up with her for all this years - and most of all, dazzled by the thought that she is part-Dunmer. That the mysterious province of Morrowind, which Llewyn has made her fall in love with through his stories and sketches, is actually her homeland. That the Dark Elves, whom she has always admired for being both skilled warriors and mages, for living through all those horrors you read about in books, and for having such beautiful faces and voices, are actually her people. Well, not quite her people. She has not even inherited Bran's fiery eyes, and neither has her father, and, as far as she knows, his father before him. But still. Gollie... She is part-Dunmer.  
  
As she tries to creep unseen back into the mansion, she bumps into her father. He must have left the feast hall to catch a breath of fresh air... He is unsteady on his feet, and the poignant smell of drink, which follows him in a cloud, makes her retch. She stops in her tracks, as her heart jolts painfully and then stops beating. Father has quite a temper, and drinking only makes it worse. Her mind screams an order to run, to hide, before he sees her... but her feet remain glued to one spot, and so she remains standing there, shivering all over, her nose twitching like a rabbit's.  
  
Father catches sight of her and lets out a low, incoherent, gurgling sound. She shrinks her head into her shoulders and feels the tears that have welled up in her eyes during the parting with Llewyn grow thicker, hotter... As they gush down her cheeks, blinding her, she feels Father loom over her, stifled by his liqour-scented breath.  
  
'Whimpering, are you?' he growls, digging his fingers into hair and giving it a violent tug. 'True Nords don't whimper! Come 'ere, I will teach you to be a true Nord!'  
  
If she were any bolder, if she were one of those children who are courageous enough to talk back to their parents, she would have said jokingly, 'I am no true Nord - and neither are you!'... But all she is capable of is staggering through the snowy courtyard after her father as he drags her by the hair towards the stables; she does not dare fight back, push him away, dig her heels into the ground... does not dare think of what is about to follow.  
  
They are inside; she can tell by her beloved smell of hay and horse manure. She is quite fond of coming here at times and petting and feeding the family's two horses - she has never as much as dreamt of riding them, of course, the beasts bring too majestic for the likes of her to mount, but she loves nuzzling against their faces and gazing into their warm, intelligent eyes... Though now, of course, horses are the last thing on her mind.  
  
Father tosses her to the ground; she yelps a little, scraping her knees and palms against the crust of frosted mud. This sound makes Father's eyes swell up with blood.  
  
'You can't handle pain,' he slurs, swaying over her and groping for a whip. 'Back during the War, lads and lasses your age were tortured by elves - and did not make a sound! And you start baaw... bawling over nothing! I will show you! I will show you real pain, you milk-drinker!'  
  
His iron-like fingers scoop up a fold of her winter coat and jerk it upwards, making a huge tear that exposes her back. She shudders in the cold air, but hurries to bite into her lips, afraid that any noise she makes might aggravate him further. He finally gets a grip on the whip handle - and with a sharp, dry crack, lashes at her back.  
  
The pain is so sudden, so overwhelming, that she gasps for breath. Mistaking this choking sound for a sob, her father roars in rage, liquor taking complete control over his mind, and raises the hand with the whip in the air again. She bites into her arm, her heart pounding somewhere in her throat, and braces herself for the next strike. As a river of fire runs down her spine, she feels that she can contain herself no longer. She lifts her head from her arm, where her teeth have dug deep, bleeding marks, and wails shrilly, her eyes streaming with tears, her nose reddened and blocked,  
  
'Please! It hurts!'  
  
'Suck it up!' Father spits at her, preparing for yet another downswing. 'I am trying to make a Nord out of you!'  
  
She draws a shuddering breath of air, trying, really trying, to 'suck it up'. But it is so hard, so very hard, for a milk-drinker like her - when her back has turned into a single bloated, soggy, bleeding wound that feels as though dozens of tiny needles are sinking into every inch of her skin. And each crack of the whip only brings with it more needles. She forces herself not to scream, tells herself that it will only make it worse - but the fire devouring her back is too strong. She shrieks with pain till she loses her voice, till her throat is gripped by uncontrollable spasms, and a lump swells up in the pit of her stomach and crawls slowly upwards - and she begins to vomit.   
  
This seems to drive Father completely insane. He tears at her back with the force of a hailstorm destroying the harvest on a field. He starts kicking at her with his iron boots, adding bruises to the raging red marks on her back. The shock of a new surge of pain makes the vomiting stop - and having caught her breath, she starts screaming again. The screams have taken complete control of her, have become her; the world plummets into a darkness, a darkness where nothing exists save for the lava crust forming on her back and her own hoarse, inhuman voice.  
  
It might seem that she is just screaming, but somewhere at the back of her mind, she registers dully that she is crying out one word, over and over again, more loud and clear with every next whip lash, with every next explosion of needles. She does not know what the word means, or where she's learned it from; but one thing remains certain: it is not a mere scream.  
  
'AAZ! AAZ!' she screeches, losing herself in the sound of that word, drowning in it like in a river, letting it pulse through her blood and stream along with it out of every flaming crack in her raw flesh.  
  
Finally, when the word rings out louder than ever before, Father tears at his own hair and beard in frustration, breaks the whip over his knee and tosses it aside, and turns the child over with a violent kick. She is lying face up now, writhing in pain as her skinned back touches the floor, and gazes up into Father's sweating, wild, drunken face. He clenches his fists. Is... Is he going to punch her in the face now? He has every reason to; she has failed him. She has not passed his test, has not lived up to the glory of those brave Nord children who did not flinch in the face of elven torture. She has proved that she is, indeed, a milk drinker. A disgrace. A disappointment.   
  
In a quiet, faltering, sad voice, she speaks yet another word in an unknown tongue,  
  
'Krosis...'  
  
And then, darkness descends on her completely. She can hear the sound of running feet, somewhere miles and miles away, and the muffled sound of her mother's voice,  
  
'Islav?! What are you doing?! That coat cost fifty septims! And look, look, you have almost ruined our saddles with all that blood!'  
  
But the last thought she has before dropping into the void of oblivion is of Llewyn. Llewyn lied. The way all grown-ups lie. She is not part-Nord, part-Dunmer. She cannot be. Both Nords and Dunmer are proud and strong people. She is neither proud, nor strong. She is not even a person.


	2. Chapter 2

'Mamoo?'  
  
The little silver-skinned, pointy-eared boy whimpered faintly, his eyes rounding and his tiny, barely visible eyebrows sliding up. The big, burly, wild-bearded Nord smiled at him, his warm blue eyes sinking into a reddened web of crows' feet. Sweeping the tiny fellow up into his arms, he walked up to where the balcony of the Jarl's Keep opened into boundless night, and pointed at the soft green glow of the aurora, billowing on the horizon like a ribbon of finest silk.  
  
'Your momma is up there,' the big Nord said softly, juggling the boy up and down in his arms. 'Battling a big, mean old dragon that was gonna gulp down the entire world!'  
  
The boy pushed forward his wet, pale-pink lips, folding them into a small tube, and made a sucking noise.  
  
'Yeah, just like that,' the big Nord chuckled.  
  
'Torvar! Step away from the edge, you skeever brain!'   
  
The sharp, shrill sound, coming from the murk behind their backs, made the boy whine a little and wriggle restlessly in the Nord's arms; he soon calmed down, however, when he recognized the voice. Scraping, hoarse, still preserving the echo of distant ash storms, this voice would surely have frightened any other child - but not this one. The boy loved listening to this rasping growl; it soothed him faster than any lullaby.  
  
'I leave you alone with the boy for two minutes, and what do you do?!' the red-haired, lithe Dunmer warrior raged, approaching the Nord and the child with his bared sword flashing menacingly. 'Dangle him over a steep drop! What if you grew tired of holding him?! What if you let him go?! What if he started moving and slipped away?!'  
  
'Whoah, whoah, Athis - calm down!' Torvar cried out defensively, backing away from the balcony's railing. 'You know I can handle the kid!'  
  
'Last time we let you baby-sit, you tried to give him mead to make him stop crying,' Athis said, breathing heavily through his nose - and not really hurrying to sheathe his blade.   
  
The boy pouted as he took in Athis' expression, his mouth turning into a thin, thread-like curve and two faint lines showing on his forehead, mirroring the shape of the Dunmer's brow ridges.  
  
'Hey, I think he doesn't like you running around with your weapon drawn,' Torvar remarked, glancing down at the child. 'What was that about controlling your temper round the kid?'  
  
With a small start, the Dunmer slid the sword back into its sheathe and stretched his arms forward.  
  
'Give me the boy,' he commanded curtly.  
  
The Nord passed him the soft, warm, squirming burden - and as soon as the Dunmer closed his arms round the child, the deep, hardened lines faded away from his face, and his angry scowl was erased, like a chalk drawing wiped off by a sponge.   
  
'Hey, little Nels,' he crooned, letting the little fellow clasp his index finger within his chubby, dimpled fist. 'Did Daddy scare you? Daddy is sorry! Daddy is just a little... jumpy, because he is worried for Mommy. Not - not that anything bad is going to happen to her, of course,' he added hurriedly, giving a reassuring pat to the small, wispy tuft of white-gold hair on the top of the boy's head, 'But - but that's the way Daddy is... He worries all the time - because he loves you both so much!'  
  
The deep, hoary sound of Athis' voice made the boy's eyes slide shut. Gurgling sleepily to himself, he nestled in his father's arms, his lips parting in a blissful, two-toothed smile - a sight that almost brought tears to the wiry, battle-scarred Dunmer's eyes.  
  
'Yes,' he repeated, planting a gentle kiss on the boy's sloping forehead. 'Daddy loves you so much...'  
  
'You should look at yourself,' Torvar said, bumping his fist playfully against Athis' shoulder. 'I wonder why the Khajiit smugglers haven't elf-napped you yet - you are simply dripping with moonsugar!'  
  
'Watch your tongue,' Athis growled, pressing baby Nels closer to his chest. 'I see no shame in displaying affection towards my son. I intend to be the kind of father to him that I myself never had... That Sveta never had...' he breathed after a small pause, gazing at the distant green light.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The tent was crammed with people, curled up on threadbare, blood-stained bedrolls. The air, so dense that you could chop through it with an axe, was steeped with the heady odour of bubbling, hissing potions lined up on the alchemy table - he had spent so much time here that he could tell where the table was and what it looked like with his eyes closed - and with the sharp, sour smell of sweating bodies, thrashing in agony all around him. All, all around him. That was what the tent really was - a giant cage that woven out of squirming, bleeding bodies; a cage where he was trapped with no escape.  
  
And he himself was an icicle, clasped in the giant, tightly clenched, burning fist of pain - like the thin, dagger-like shards he would break off the windowsills on the outer sides of sturdy wooden Nord buildings, watching the ice melt away in his hand. He was an icicle - thawing, thawing, his life draining out of him drop by drop.  
  
Through the haze between his heavy, drooping eyelids, he could vaguely discern a dark shape, floating at his side against the blurred canvas background of the tent. Blinking slowly - which took a great deal of effort - he identified the shape as Fjori the Battle Matron. A young, newly ordained priestess who had run off from the warm safety of the temple to fight alongside her Nord brothers and sisters for the freedom of their land. Her potions and magic had put many a wounded Stormcloak back on their feet - but his injuries were too grave for her to treat. She never told him that, not openly - but he could sense it in the way she fussed around him, singling him out among the other feverish, bloodied, groaning occupants of the tent... as though apologizing for being unable to undo what that treacherous Imperial had done to him.  
  
She was a good lass, Fjori - as brave as any man whose torn flesh she mended. And pretty, too - with wide, clear eyes and unevenly cropped dirty-blonde hair that always got in the way... His daughter would look something like that, all grown up... His daughter...  
  
He groaned faintly, congealed blood gurgling somewhere in his throat. Fjori started in alarm and bent down to him, her eyebrows knitted.  
  
'Save your strength, brother... Please...'  
  
He made an attempt to twitch his numb index finger, beckoning Fjori to lean closer. She understood his faltering gesture and shifted to his side so her hair brushed against his burning face.  
  
'Fjo... ri...' he wheezed, straining to tear through the caked blood that sealed his lips together. 'Will... I... go to... Sov... Sov...'  
  
Her eyes glinted.  
  
'I am doing the best I can to keep you with us,' she said softly, resting her hand on his heaving chest. 'But even if my magic does fail - I am certain you will go to Sovngarde and feast in great Shor's halls. You have fought bravely against the Empire; you deserve a place among our honoured ancestors'.  
  
He curled his lips slightly. Of course, she would say that, wouldn't she? He was a fool to ask her, a fool with his mind addled by delirium. She did not know. She did not know what he had done before he ran off from Cyrodiil to the land of his ancestors, before he joined Ulfric's cause. She did not know that for him, fighting to overthrow the yoke of the Empire was a way of chasing off the visions of his past. Of making himself forget.  
  
But he never forgot. It still haunted him, flashing inside his mind with terrible, life-like clarity, even in mid-battle, blocking out everything else before his eyes while his sword arm still hacked mechanically at his foes, somewhere in another plane... A vision of a tiny, flaxen-haired girl with eyes that shimmered like molten silver - cowering helplessly before him, lips twitching... begging him not to hurt her.  
  
All this time, he had been trying to tell himself that he had done nothing wrong; after all, he had been drunk, and you can't judge a man by what he does with his mind fogged by that good, strong Nord liquor, now can you? And besides, she had been asking for it - the whimpering, elf-loving milk-drinker! A daughter like that would bring shame to any true Nord! What other choice did he have? The brat had to learn her lesson!  
  
But no matter how often he repeated this to himself, the vision refused to go away. Time and time again, the entire world would fade to black, and out of that inky, impenetrable blackness, a tiny figure, woven out of gold and silvery light, would step forward, arms outstretched towards him. Weeping. Pleading. And the sight of the ghostly child burned into his heart like a white-hot brand, making him feel terribly, unbearably guilty. Making him doubt whether he deserved the ultimate reward of a valiant Nord. Whether the likes of him were welcome in Sovngarde.  
  
He would have to ask Fjori about this; she was a priestess, she would know. Only this time, he would have to explain why he was worried. He would have to tell her about that night when, deep in his cups after a feast, he bumped into his little daughter and horse-whipped her for not being a proper Nord...  
  
Groaning hoarsely, he attempted to speak again - but could not, as something dark and cold and heavy pressed against him chest, making it so very, very hard to breathe. This something grew bigger and bigger with every passing second, suffocating him, burying him beneath its weight - while the tent and Fjori drifted away from him, floating up in large, slow circles, leaving him sprawled helplessly underneath the dark presence, which kept swelling in size, consuming him whole...  
  
  
***  
  
  
He did not remember how he had managed to get outside the tent. Had Fjori's healing spells worked on him, after all? He - he had to find someone, a fellow soldier of his - and ask what had happened.  
  
He stumbled forward, a little unsteady on his feet. They must have moved camp while he was wounded; at least, he did not remember this valley. The jutting cliffs were bigger than the ones that had sheltered their last retreat, and the shrubs clinging on to them were far too lush, their branches foaming with tender pink and white blossoms. And the sky overhead - gods, it was so bright, with swirls of blue and purple and silver all melting into one another; he had never seen an aurora shaded so vividly. The dazzling feast of light made his eyes sting; he lifted his hand to his face to rub off the tears - and froze. His fingers had threads of soft golden light twisting round them, and as he looked through them at the sky, he could still see the aurora; its glow was a little dimmed, as though he was gazing out of a window with smoky glass panes - but still.   
  
He whirled round, making a few stumbling circles, his head buzzing with the echoes of old legends he had heard. So - so he had not survived, after all. And this had to be - this had to be Sovngarde! He fell to his knees, kissing the tall grass blades with his see-through, fleshless lips. Thank the gods! He was in Sovngarde! Sovngarde! The word rang inside his heart like a triumphant battle cry, like the song of a bard hailing the true sons of Skyrim. Sovngarde!  
  
It did feel... a little disappointing to be dead - but he had been living underneath death's dark, chilling wing ever since he got punctured by that Imperial; Fjori had been trying to look cheerful, but deep down, he had always known that it was merely a matter of time before he left his bleeding, half-crushed mortal body behind. And Shor's bones, they had let him into Sovngarde! This meant that he would finally get to rest, stretching his ghostly legs at the fireside, feasting on a never-ending supply of roasted ox meat together with the heroes of old - no longer troubled by visions.  
  
Getting up with a happy, giddy smile, he pushed forward his glowing, half-transparent chest, still clad in bloodied Stormcloak armour - he was not sure how this was possible, since he now had no lungs to breathe with, but he was somehow able to drink in the wonderfully fresh, crisp air, which tasted sweeter than the finest wine. Filling himself up with that crystal clear, heavenly drink, almost to bursting point, he took a broad stride forward. If he remembered the bardic lore correctly - and he most certainly did, the true son of Skyrim that he was - he had to cross the valley to get to Shor's Hall.  
  
'Never-ending merrymaking, here I come!' he muttered to himself smugly.  
  
He had barely made one step, however, when the valley changed. With a blood-curdling screech that made the ground underneath his feet give way, an enormous black shadow slid across the sky, and when it swept out of sight, torrents of dense mist came pouring in, as though someone had set loose invisible flood gates. The swirling pale grey tide rose higher and higher, eating away at the outlines of cliffs all around him, rushing towards him in a tall, grey, unstoppable wall. Soon, he could see no further than his outstretched hand; his heart sinking into the icy pit of terror, he dashed wildly to the left, to the right, forward - and everywhere he turned, he faced nothing but blank grey emptiness.   
  
'This... This is a nightmare...' he choked, tearing into his billowing, glowing hair.  
  
But the real nightmare was just about to begin.  
  
As he stumbled around in blind desperation, the shapeless, blurred whirls of mist began to mould themselves into a discernible, painfully recognizable outline. His daughter. His Sveta. Her tiny figure always, inevitably barred his way, no matter how hard he tried to escape her groping hands, no matter how wildly he danced on the spot. The shape of the weeping child dissolved the moment he turned away from it, only to appear before his eyes once again - and when he finally grew weary of his ceaseless attempts to free himself of the vision and stopped whirling around, the apparition that he was facing began to shimmer slightly; as the shimmer grew brighter an brighter, another, identical little girl appeared next to the vision, and then another, and one more, and more, like shades cast by a Wisp Mother. Each setting herself alight with a ghostly, pale flame, the countless Svetas surrounded him in a tight, unbreakable circle, enclosed in a second, larger one, which in turn was locked inside a third, and so on, for as far as he could see. Countless rows of ghastly white faces, with burning tears rolling down the thin, sunken cheeks; countless pairs of silvery eyes, gleaming, begging him silently to make the pain go away; countless hands, tiny, bony, with see-through, smoke-like fingers, stretching forward, trying to reach him, to stop the merciless lashes of the whip.  
  
'No! No!' he panted, sinking down to the ground as the searching hands of little Sveta swayed around him like silvery seaweed. 'No! Make it stop! Make it stop!'  
  
The girls did not move an inch. He clawed at the hard, unyielding earth, like a wild beast, his eyes darting feverishly from one tear-stained face to another.  
  
'Please... Please... Sveta...' he croaked. 'I am sorry for what I did to you... I have always been sorry... That - '   
  
He gulped painfully, swallowing a large lump in his throat - and after that lump was gone, words came out, in a powerful unstoppable cascade. Words that he did not know he had in him.  
  
'That was why I left... Not because of my disagreements with your mother... Because of you. After what happened at the stables, I had never been able to look you in the face the same way again. I - I guess I should have stayed behind. I should have made it up to you by being a better father. But I could not... I just could not. I was such a weak, pathetic coward. Unable to fight my goddamn drinking habit. Unable to face the truth about who I was. Come to think of it, now I... I don't even know why they let me into Sovngarde. Sure, I fought under Ulfric's banner - but what does it matter when I failed my own daughter?'  
  
  
***  
  
  
In a way, she had failed him too. Instead of cowering before him like the terrified little child that she was, she should have looked closer into his heart; she should have seen the pain he was in. A free spirit, trapped in the web of intrigues and lies that was her mother's world. Turning to drink to find at least some sort of solace. And dreading and resenting what he was turning into.  
  
Beneath the polished black ebony of her armour, the old scars were still crisscrossing her back. Pale, half-faded lines that her husband's fingers had so often traced while they were making love. There was a time, long ago, when these scars ran across her body like fiery cracks, tearing her whole being apart, breaking her - an eternal symbol of her  fears and self-loathing.   
But that time had passed. She had risen from a quivering, sniveling whelp to the proud leader of the greatest warrior band in Skyrim; she had seen countless battles and had endured the curse of vampirism and lycanthropy; she had parted with the mer she loved, and then, reunited with him again - and had borne and birthed his child; she had finally discovered her true fate as the Dragonborn, the savior of the land and slayer of Alduin the World-Eater.   
  
All of this made the terrors of her past fade away to pale, fleeting shades - and as she looked upon the poor soul of the Stormcloak soldier, thrashing on the ground at her feet, screaming at the demons that only he could see; as, with an abrupt pang of recognition, she took in those twisted features, she thought not of the raving drunk that had whipped her in the stables all those years ago. She thought of a man hounded by the guilt and pain of his past, of a man that needed a rest in the afterlife after all he had endured in the mortal world.  
  
Stepping closer to the tormented spirit, the mighty Dragonborn, a short woman clad in a full set of ebony armour, spread out her shoulders - and Shouted.  
  
LOK VAH KOOR.  
  
The three short words slashed at the thick, billowing mass of the mist, making it crawl away, releasing the Stormcloak's soul from its dark clutches and dispelling whatever nightmarish visions that tore at the poor spirit. Of course, in the dragon tongue, these words had an entirely different significance - but for the Dragonborn, they meant, 'I forgive you'.


End file.
